Day 4205

Every once in a while I do something unpleasant just because it needs to be done. Today I bought a bunch of St. Augustine sod and covered all the bare areas in the back yard. Today seemed like a good day to put in new sod because the ground was still very wet and made it easier to prepare the soil for the new grass. I haven't put in sod for a while and had forgotten that this is a tiring, messy job. I used to put in a new turf almost every year. Then we started using a landscape company for a while. Lately we have done nothing and I just mow the weeds. Wet, muddy sod is messy stuff to carry around in a car. The old Land Rover Defender was certainly easier to clean up afterwards. It was probably good that the sod was wet though bacause it won't dry out as fast when we are trying to get it established. Wet sod is very heavy. Each square seemed to weigh twice as much as I remember.

I think I did a good job. The yard looks presentable now and Dawn will be a lot less likely to roll around in the dirt. Like other outdoor chores I've attempted recently, installing the sod reminded me that I'm well past my prime. My hands still hurt from carrying each piece or the heavy, slippery sod from the car to the back yard. I thought it would be easy to carry a square of sod in each hand while I was moving the stuff to the back yard. I must have been dreaming. I had to carry one square at a time. I definitely have some arthritis in my fingers now. The old joints don't move like they used to. I got the job done though and now there is one fewer item on my to do list.

By the time I was finished with the yard work it was way too hot to take my long walk in the park. I did a load of laundry, took a short nap, and then went to the gym. I got a notice the other day that my gym no longer has a mask requirement. Nobody was wearing masks today. This was quite a change from a few days ago and seemed to prove that everybody had just been following the rules without any strong feelings about whether masks actually worked. One old fool was wearing a loose fitting cloth bandana while he was running around the track but that was about it. Now that the mask mandate is history, I hope that the gym brings back the basketballs soon. I really used to enjoy shooting baskets on the court. They said I could bring my own basketball, but it would be a lot easier to just use one of theirs.

Dawn had a day of beauty at the vet while I was putting in the new sod this morning. Janet discovered that the price included a nail trim and getting Dawn's anal glands expressed, so the deluxe bath was actually less expensive than taking Dawn to one of those self-bathe places and then having a vet do the nails and anal glands as separate items. We still need to figure out why Dawn is obsessively licking her feet, but that's going to be a lot more complicated than getting a bath.

I watched the Space X Transporter 2 launch this afternoon on the streaming channel. The launch got scrubbed with ten seconds on the clock. There was a range violation and apparently there was a boat or an airplane in the restricted zone. Every time a launch is scrubbed it reminds me that a trip to Florida is never a sure thing. When a launch gets delayed, suddenly your trip becomes much more expensive. This has happened to me several times already and I haven't even been to that many launches. I guess nothing is a sure thing. There's been a lot of rain out at McDonald Observatory recently, so this wouldn't have been a good time for a visit out there either. The Davis Mountains really needed the rain though. It has been very dry this year.

I'm not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. I'm definitely not going to do any more yard work. Hopefully I won't be dealing with roof leaks either. A day with absolutely nothing on the agenda is perfectly fine with me.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day